1. Field of the Disclosure
The invention generally relates to miniaturized natural gas analyzers that use gas chromatography. Specifically, it relates to a natural gas analyzer that is machined onto a single micro-chip and uses gas chromatography for analyzing natural gas.
2. Background Art
Gas chromatography (GC) has been used for more than 50 years within the field of natural gas analysis to separate and quantify the different components found within natural gas. Over this time period, the technology used within gas chromatographs has generally remained the same since when the technology was originally introduced into the natural gas industry. For example, the equipment used for gas chromatographs within laboratories has remained fairly large and cumbersome, thereby limiting the adaptability and versatility for the equipment. These limitations may be a strain on resources, as moving the equipment around may be a challenge that requires an unnecessary amount of time and assets. Because of the bulkiness of the existing GC analyzers for gas analysis this analysis is typically performed off-line in a laboratory environment.
Within about the past 10 years, certain efforts have been made in reducing the size of GC gas analyzers mainly in applications other than natural gas.
An example of a miniaturized gas chromatograph is disclosed in U.S Published patent application No. 2006/0210441 A1 to Schmidt (“Schmidt”). This gas describes a GC gas analyzer that includes an injector, a separation column, and a detector all combined onto a circuit board (such as a printed circuit board). The injector then incorporates a type of slide valve, which is used to introduce a defined volume of liquid or gas. Schmidt asserts that by using this slide valve, the gas chromatograph may create a reliable and reproducible gas sample. This gas sample is then injected into the column to separate the gas sample into various components.
Though Schmidt describes a smaller gas chromatograph for manufacturing, the chromatographs are still slow to develop for use within the natural gas industry. For example, there are some gas chromatographs that are manufactured commercially for use within the natural gas industry, but these chromatographs are designed specifically for analyzing domestic natural gas. Within the spectrum of natural gas, domestic natural gas consists of only a small portion of the spectrum. As such, this suggests that these domestic gas chromatographs are designed to analyze only a small portion of the natural gas spectrum, therefore not being useful or applicable outside of this small application. For example, natural gases that are found within hydrocarbon fields may vary from having only a trace of carbon dioxide to having over 90% carbon dioxide. This large variation within the ranges of the components of natural gas makes it difficult for gas chromatographs to correctly separate and analyze the components within the natural gas. As such, current models and techniques used within gas chromatographs in the natural gas industry may be improved to have smaller and more versatile gas analyzers.